‎Around the House® Home Improvement on Apple Podcasts

Get all of our latest home-related stories—from mortgage rates to refinance tips—directly to your inbox once a week. Most experts agree you should never touch your retirement savings except in case of emergency. Tapping into your retirement to fund a home project not only deprives your retirement fund of the money, but it also costs you in lost interest. That money that could be benefiting from compound interest, so be very thoughtful about pulling any money from your retirement accounts, and avoid doing so if you can. HELOCs have a variable interest rate, meaning the interest you owe will fluctuate over the course of your HELOC term, and is subject to change with the market.

• Does your house have big windows in areas you’d rather keep private?
• She edited home repair and design content at websites like The Spruce and HomeAdvisor.
• When you’re showing your home to potential buyers, small touches make a big difference.
• But it’s the sort of thing that only benefits the truly lucky.

A simple update that goes a long way is replacing bathroom and kitchen fixtures, especially if you’re looking to sell in the near future. Stainless steel appliances can be affordable and are well sought after in the homebuying market. This can be anything from doorknobs, sinks, faucets, to cabinet fixtures and more. Start brainstorming which rooms and pieces you want to paint. An accent wall can be a fun addition to switch up the design of a room without making significant changes.

You could gain access to some of your equity and lower your mortgage payment at the same time. “Replacing siding also lowers energy costs, which has a huge impact on the home’s value if you decide to sell.” The report shows both fiber cement, 69.4%, and vinyl siding, 68.3%, retain much of their value. To apply for a disabled facilities grant, you need to fill in a form which you can get from your local authority. They might ask for information and/or for tests to be carried out before you make a formal application.

The average homeowner with a mortgage saw their home equity grow to more than $200,000 thanks to a big increase in home prices, according to the Homeowner Equity Insights report by housing data firm CoreLogic. If you’re looking for a “safe” color, gray has been trending in recent years, Norris says. Lowe’s and Home Depot, chains that sell renovation products, reported strong financial results this week. Your space may also feel impersonal and generic if you’re replicating the renovations you see on screen.

The kitchen and the bath are ideal places to integrate products that provide peace of mind. As the hub of home, a kitchen affords you a convenient location to monitor House & Home Improvement security cameras, answer smart doorbells, and create passcodes for smart door locks. The real estate value will appreciate when your home is adequately maintained.

Personal Independence Payment

Another option to finance home improvements if remortgaging isn’t right for you is finding a second mortgage . This is also known as a secured homeowner loan or second charge mortgage. It may be that you don’t want to remortgage to finance home improvements because you have a great mortgage deal or early repayment charges mean it is more cost effective to get a second mortgage.

Give your messy closet a pretty, practical overhaul by placing pantry staples in dedicated bins. These woven beauties will only set you back about $8 each, leaving plenty of wallet wiggle room for the handy clip-on labels. Skip the standard kick plate and install chic house numbers on the bottom of your front door instead.

With the house mostly finished, it is safe to put on the gutters and siding. You do not want to do this earlier unless absolutely necessary, because doors and windows may get punched out, thus ruining the exterior job. No matter what you choose, plan to install the flooring as late as possible in the renovation process. This will save your flooring surface from significant damage. Many homeowners can handle the work of painting interior walls, hanging wallpaper, painting molding and trim, or staining and sealing trim. All of these detail-oriented surface finishes should be some of the last items you do indoors, as this work can damage other parts of the process.

And a lot of the work going on in backyards slips under the radar of people like Anderson. Astoria Camille, for instance, is working on a scrappy project behind her mother’s home in Kansas City’s Troostwood neighborhood. “My partner and I, we like to travel quite a bit,” Taylor says, smiling. “We like theater. We like live music. And so that’s how we spend our money. But then suddenly all that stopped, and so, if I can’t travel, I chose to put my energy in the place where I am.” “As soon as COVID hit, we needed someplace the kids could play,” Buhr says, noting that neighborhood parks were closed. “So we put a playhouse down first and then found the kids liked it so much that we went ahead and built a living room. And then my wife needed the space to work.”